Hi? I'm finally back...I took time off writing any fanfiction so that I could study for final exams. But now it's summer, and I'm back! This time, I will be starting weekly updates, so that I can actually finish this story. I rather like this chapter though...finally the plot is starting to move!

Xion's jaw nearly fell to the floor. She could almost feel her own shock and horror oozing off her skin and wrapping around her neck like a pithon, squeezing until she could barely breathe.

"Are you okay?"

She barely registered the muffled voice emanating from the other side of the clear box she was trapped in. Her own thoughts were far too loud.

This couldn't be happening.

"Xion, answer me!"

She snapped her eyes back to Roxas's face, and she heard herself replying.

"Yeah, I'm fine."

"How do I get you out of there?"

"I think those levers-"

Roxas ran to the wall and pulled down on the first lever he saw. Instantly there was a strange grinding noise, and the translucent walls of the cube gave a creak and began to shrink, rapidly closing in on her.

"Not that one!" Xion yelled as Roxas fumbled with the controls. "The other one, the big blue-"

He yanked it down and the clear wall under her hands suddenly disappeared. She stumbled forward, out of the bizarre apparatus, and would've hit the floor if two arms hadn't caught her by the waist and propped her back up on her feet.

"Hey, Xion," Roxas said, his face mere inches from her own. She caught her breath when he gave a slight smile, his eyes pulling her in. Then she pushed herself away from him, trying to get some distance so she could think.

"You can't be here," she told me. "This isn't possible. You can't be here."

"Where is here anyway?" he asked, scanning the room in vague confusion. "And how did I get here? I mean, one minute I was in my room at the Castle That Never Was, and then I was here..."

"And Axel's gone too," Xion muttered to herself. If she had summoned Roxas to her, what if Axel had been sent to take his place in the future? That would mean that there were two Axel's in the future. What would happen if they met? Oh god, this could not be happening.

"Xion? Are you alright?"

She looked up to see Roxas looking at her in concern.

"I think I broke the space-time continuum," she said.

"Say what?"

"I broke it. I definitely broke it! The world is going to explode now and it'll be all my fault!"

"Hey, calm down! I'm sure you haven't killed the world!"

Xion gasped as a thought suddenly occurred to her.

"Xandra. We have to find Xandra. She'll know what to do."

"Who is-"

"She was sent on ahead by Axel, so she should still be here somewhere..."

"Axel?"

"Talking about it won't solve anything though. Come on. We're going to look for her."

She grabbed Roxas's sleeve and began to pull him towards the doorway, but he planted his feet.

"Wait."

Xion dropped his arm, dreading his next words.

"At least give me some sort of explanation," Roxas said quietly. "How did I get here? Where are we?"

"I...I summoned you here," Xion began. "By accident. We're in the past, at Castle Oblivion, the place that Axel and some of the other members went to. I was brought here by a Nobody from the future, a girl named Xandra. That's all I can tell you right now." She stepped forward, impulsively grabbing his hands between hers. "You just have to trust me."

For a moment he just looked at her, his face still swamped in confusion and surprise. Twice he opened his mouth to say something, but then stopped. Finally, his expression cleared, and she felt his fingers lace with hers.

"I trust you," he replied.

She nodded, forgetting what her hurry was as they stood there looking at each other.

"Xion!"

They both turned to see a girl hurtle into the room, planting her hand against the doorframe to stop herself, her dark hair flopping in her face. As soon as she caught sight of the boy with Xion, her cheeks paled.

"How can he be-"

"I don't have time to fully explain," Xion cut in, letting go of Roxas's hands. "I accidentally summoned Roxas from the future, and I accidentally sent the castle Oblivion Axel into the future."

"Geez!" Xandra breathed, putting a hand to her head. "I leave you alone for one minute..." she broke off, then continued, her expression growing dark. "But that would explain why weird things are happening, and in the wrong order. I saw Repliku-he's a copy of Riku that Vexen made-walking through the halls, and he isn't even supposed to have been made yet."

"Well, what do we-"

"You two stay here," Xandra instructed, opening a dark portal with a flick of her wrist. "I'll go bring back CO Axel from the future."

Not even waiting to hear some sort of agreement, she jumped headfirst into the darkness and it zippered shut behind her.

Roxas stared, dumbstruck, at the spot where she had been. Xion wracked her mind for a way to explain the other girl.

"Xandra used to be Axel's girlfriend before we came to the Organization, but someone erased his memory of her."

Roxas nodded, as though this suddenly cleared everything up.

"I could definitely see her with Axel."

Suddenly, footsteps echoed in the hallway beyond, slow but certainly heading towards the room they were in. Blue eyes met wide blue eyes before they simultaneously dashed around the curve of a huge metal tube on the floor, heading for the only place they could see to hide: the thin area behind an enormous metal bookcase. Xion slid in, her back pressed to the wall, but Roxas hesitated, obviously wondering how he was going to fit in there as well. The footsteps were almost to the room now, and she could hear a voice as well, disturbingly close.

"And this room here is my second temporary laboratory..."

Swallowing her embarrassment, Xion grabbed Roxas's sleeve and yanked him behind the bookcase, on top of her.

"Spectacular room, isn't it?" the smooth voice said, now obviously in the room itself. "When the Organization is finished with this Castle, I think I would like to recreate it back at The Castle That Never Was."

Distantly, Xion placed the voice in her memory: it was Vexen. However, she couldn't bring herself to focus on what was happening outside, because her world had abruptly shrunk to the space behind the bookcase.

It was so small that Roxas was literally plastered against her, flattened so that there wasn't a single inch of his body that wasn't touching hers. His hands were braced on the wall on either side of her head, his arms effectively caging her. She felt warm, uncomfortably so, and she had nowhere to put her own arms. They hovered stupidly at her sides, her palms slipping with sweat against the wall.

The worst was that his face was inches from her own. He was only an inch taller than her, and there was simply no room. He had his head pulled back as far as it could go, but his eyes stared into hers, his cheeks bright red, his breath puffing out over her own mouth. She could almost taste his breath. Feeling shaky and uncertain, she slowly licked her lips. This was a mistake. His eyes flicked down to her mouth, and she felt a dizzy tingling spread through her head. What was wrong with her?

Roxas glanced from her lips back to her eyes, the golden spikes of his hair brushing against her forehead. She tensed in surprise when he started leaning forward, but he merely shifted so his head slid in next to hers, his chin rested against her shoulder, his cheek pressed to hers.

"Sorry," he whispered in her ear, his words tickling the skin in a way that caused a bizarre shiver to run down her spine. "There's no room..."

She raised her hand and rested it on his shoulder, trying to convey that it was alright. He relaxed slightly onto her and for a moment Xion could find nothing to think about except the way that their breathing had fallen into a rhythm: when she inhaled, he exhaled, when she exhaled, he inhaled. Their bodies melted and moved together like one being, and all they were doing was breathing.

But suddenly she became aware that there was a second person other than Vexen in the room when she heard another voice.

"No, I won't."

The voice was that of a girl's, soft, but determined, wavering only slightly.

"I won't get into that machine."

"Ah, but you don't have a choice," replied Vexen silkily.

"Tell me what it does first," the girl said, obviously stalling.

"Why, it merely summons to you the one person whom you want more than anything."

Xion froze, realizing simultaneously that they were talking about the box thing and that Roxas was also listening. Please, she begged silently, don't let him figure it out. Don't let him see the truth: that that machine brought him here for me.

"And both of us know who that box would summon for you, don't we, girl? The Keyblade Master. Your saviour."

So this girl was a friend of Sora's? And the person she wanted most was him? She couldn't get into that box! Xion started to struggle out of the space behind the bookshelf, determined to stop this, but Roxas's hand suddenly moved from the wall and curved around her waist, holding her to him.

"Wait," he hissed.

"I don't want to summon him," the girl exclaimed.

"Of course you do," Vexen laughed. "You want the hero to save you, don't you?"

For a moment the girl was silent, but then:

"Your plan might not work if you teleport him into the middle of the Castle. You said he was coming this way anyway. Just let him walk in through the front door."

"But wouldn't you rather see him now? I know you draw pictures of him, all over your room-"

"Stop it!"

There was a crashing noise, as though the girl was clumsily running away from Vexen. Xion tensed as a girl suddenly appeared in her vision, slumping against the wall right next to the bookcase. The girl glanced over, and her shocked eyes met Xion's.

For a second, they just stared at each other, but then Xion raised her hand, placing one finger against her lips.

Please, she tried to convey with her eyes.

The girl pushed away from the wall, abruptly moving out of sight.

"Vexen?"

"Yes, girl?"

"I'd like to be alone in here for a minute."

"Very well. But don't try escaping: I'll be guarding the end of the hallway."

A brief pause, and then some more footsteps, now receding into the distance. Still, Xion didn't dare to start breathing until the face of the girl appeared again at the crack of the bookshelf.

"It's okay, you guys can come out now," she said quietly.

Xion nodded, and pulled her arms away from Roxas. He shifted backwards as far as he could, squeezing by her, his face passing an inch from hers again. It took a minute, but he wormed out of the tiny space, stepping out into the room. Xion took a deep breath, feeling both grateful and disappointed that he was off of her, before she followed him.

Only when all three of them were standing in the middle of the room could Xion really get a good look at the girl who was apparently being held prisoner here.

She had blond hair, a little longer than shoulder length, which softly fell over her right shoulder. She was wearing a simple, short, white dress, and her eyes were a deep blue. But the thing Xion noticed the most was that, in facial features, she looked a lot like herself. A lot like Kairi.

The girl didn't seem to notice. In fact, she only seemed to have eyes for Roxas, who she hadn't seen until he'd been able to get out from behind the bookshelf.

"You're him, aren't you?" she said breathlessly. "You're Sora's Nobody."

"What?" Roxas said in confusion.

Xion frantically tried to remind if Roxas knew who Sora was. Geez, the future and past and present were all getting muddled in her mind, especially when the past was the present for her currently!

"It doesn't matter," she said, interrupting. "I'm Xion, and this is Roxas. You're being held prisoner here, aren't you?"

"Yes, I am."

"We'll get you out of here," Roxas decided abruptly. Xion glanced over at him in surprise: Roxas was usually very wary around new people, slow to make friends. But she agreed. Even though she had a mission to perform, she couldn't just leave this girl here.

"We promise," she said. "What did you say your name was?"

"Oh, sorry, I didn't," the girl replied, her luminescent eyes gazing into Roxas's.

"I'm Namine."